


Across the Universe

by mchaha



Category: Booksmart (2019)
Genre: F/F, Long-Distance Relationship, Love Letters, Pen Pals, Postcards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24529288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mchaha/pseuds/mchaha
Summary: She gets the first postcard 11 days after she steps foot in Botswana.  It’s a photo of some painting at the LACMA of two circles in alternating colors of red and blue. There’s writing on the front, one arrow pointing to each circle, one labeled “left hole” and one labeled “right hole”. When she flips it over to the blank side, there are a few words scrawled on the side opposite her name and address.Not sure why, but I thought of you when I saw thisx HOr, Amy & Hope become long-distance pen pals
Relationships: Amy/Hope (Booksmart)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 119





	Across the Universe

**Author's Note:**

> I think I started writing this when I saw the movie about a year ago and alas! It's finally finished.
> 
> Thoroughly unedited, apologize for any mistakes.

She gets the first postcard 11 days after she steps foot in Botswana. It’s a photo of some painting at the LACMA of two circles in alternating colors of red and blue. There’s writing on the front, one arrow pointing to each circle, one labeled “left hole” and one labeled “right hole”. When she flips it over to the blank side, there are a few words scrawled on the side opposite her name and address. 

_ Not sure why, but I thought of you when I saw this _

_ x H _

Amy rolls her eyes at the memory, still embarrassed by the events that transpired between her and the other girl in the bathroom of Nick’s party. The postcard is stamped June 1, about a week after graduation, five days after she’d seen Hope for the last time outside of her house a few days later, and two days after she’d left LA. 

She’d adjusted to the African country well enough so far, still getting used to living a much simpler lifestyle than she’d been used to in Los Angeles. Her family was by no means poor, but they also weren’t as well off as many of the other students in her class. She’d spent over 75% of her life’s savings on her move across the country and was prepared to be weighed down by student debt as soon as she was back state-side come next year. 

That being said, her entire outlook on socioeconomic status had been upended as soon as she realized what people in Botswana dealt with every day. She was living in the capital city of Gaborone and was lucky to have access to a fairly reliable wifi connection. Her weird international data plan was to be used only in emergencies, and so she was relegated to only texting and calling Molly and her family once she was home in the evening, after a day’s work of traveling to nearby villages or actually working in the factory making tampons with the other volunteers.

The difficult part was managing the time zone difference. When she was getting home at 6PM, Los Angeles was barely getting to work at 9AM earlier that day. Molly, who was volunteering at the local library this summer before heading to New Haven early in August, could usually only chat sporadically throughout her morning, by the time it was evening in California, it would be past midnight in Africa, and Amy would be fast asleep.

On weekends like today, they were able to do the most catching up, having uninterrupted phone calls that sometimes lasted hours long. It was still Saturday morning in Africa though, and she knew better than to call her best friend in case she was already asleep. She wanted to immediately call the other girl and squeal through the phone about her huge crush on the annoyingly hot brunette that had turned out to have lips softer than she’d ever could have imagined, but she didn’t need another lecture on the importance of REM cycles for memory consolidation and how there were actual scientific studies on beauty sleep.

She dug around her backpack for the folded slip of paper that Hope had passed to her the last time they’d seen each other two weeks ago. Her phone number was written in slanted handwriting, in the effortlessly cool way that only girls like Hope could pull off, along with the acronym from their childhood, HAKAS, and a semicolon + parenthesis paired winking face. 

She wasn’t sure if Hope was still in California, or if she had taken off on her round the world backpacking trip, but she typed the digits into her phone and sent off a message before she could talk herself out of it.

_ How did you get my address? _

The buzz of an incoming message came not even 30 seconds later.

_ I was wondering if you’d ever grow a pair and text me _ , and in a separate message, _ I ran into your wife at Ralphs the day after you left _

Amy immediately opens up her text thread with Molly - Were you ever going to tell me you ran into Hope and gave her my mailing address?

She doesn’t wait for a response from her best friend, knowing that Molly was probably already asleep despite it being just past midnight in Los Angeles. Instead, she clutches her phone to her chest, throws her other arm over her eyes and sighs.

She hadn’t texted Hope because she still felt super awkward about what had happened between them in the bathroom the night before graduation. Even though the other girl had extended the proverbial olive branch outside her house a few days after the incident, a part of Amy still felt hesitant toward the taller girl’s affections. It wasn’t just her intimidatingly good looks, although that was a part of it. For Christ’s sake, the girl was like the love child of Anne Hathaway and Julia Roberts, two of Amy’s role model/celebrity crushes.

On top of that, her aloof demeanor in class hid how smart the girl actually was. She’d heard through the grapevine that Hope had been accepted into every university that she’d applied to, an impressive feat even for Molly’s high standards. The last Amy had heard, she’d gotten her letter from the Stanford admissions committee.

Twisting on her side, she took her phone out again and bit her lip, trying to think of the perfect response to keep the cross-global conversation going.

_ I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we’re separated right now. _

_ She has custody of the kids _

The response is immediate.

_ Aw, are Mommy & Daddy fighting right now? _

The thought of Hope referring to her as Daddy makes her stomach flutter. Realistically, she knows the title is said in jest (the entire cast of Riverdale was proof of this), but it still makes her feel some kind of way.

_ Are you calling me Daddy? _

Again, her phone buzzes with another message before the clock flips to the next minute.

_ Obviously Molly wears the pants in your relationship so no ;)  _

_ Besides, let’s be real. If anyone is daddy in this relationship it’s me _

The blush creeps its way onto her cheeks before she realizes it. Amy’s glad that she has a private room in her host family’s condo so that nobody could see how flustered she gets from texting one pretty girl across the world.

_ Oh, so this is a relationship now? _

When the response isn’t immediate like the others had been, Amy panics and pushes her phone across the bed. She has to get up anyway to get ready for the day. 

If she spends the next 10 minutes changing and doing her morning skincare routine while watching her phone from the corner of her eye, well, who can blame her.

Amy is in the middle of taking extra care to brush each of her teeth for the recommended time when she hears a muted buzz from across the room. Spitting the toothpaste carelessly into the sink, she sprints across her room, sliding on the title to crash into bed and lunging to grab her phone.

She sees three messages waiting for her.

The first, a screenshot of the other girl’s phone web browser with the search bar reading “relationship definition” and the definition below.  **The way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected.**

Followed by,  _ I’d say we’ve been pretty connected  _ and a smirking emoji

And the third,  _ Come on Africa, aren’t you going Ivy? _

Amy doesn’t dignify that with a full response, knowing that Hope is referring to exactly the incident that she wishes the other girl could forget. Instead, she sends over a rolling eyes emoji and switches over to Instagram to scroll through the pictures of her classmates back in California.

As usual, Gigi’s Insta story has dozens of dashes and features a thrilling look at a night-in-the-life of the Hollywood 1%. From the looks of it, her, Jared, Triple A, Nick, and Theo had spent the night in Venice, getting into who knows what kind of shenanigans at the skatepark and pier. 

It does surprise Amy a bit that Hope wasn’t with the rest of them. She seems like exactly the type of girl that would enjoy a little night swim.

Curious, and a little disappointed that she may have unintentionally ended their flirty banter for the night, she swipes back over to her messages. Her thumb accidentally taps open the screenshot again. Like many other iPhone dependent teens, her eyes are drawn first to the battery icon in the corner where she's delighted to find that Hope keeps her battery level appropriately charged. The next thing she notes is the time - 4PM - which means she’s definitely not in Los Angeles anymore.

_ Wait, where are you that it’s 4PM? _

She does not expect a picture of Hope and another girl, both in a bikini on some beach, to be the next thing that pops up on her screen. Her grip loosens on the phone, and it slips down, barely missing her face and falling on the pillow next to her head.

Accompanied by the photos is a one-word challenge -  _ Guess? _

Rationally, she knows that she has the ability to do a quick google search to find out which time zone is experiencing 4PM right now, but she also doesn’t want to keep interrupting the other girl’s beach day, especially if she’s having a good time with other people.

She fires off a quick text, feeling slightly dejected but still warm inside knowing that she was stuck in Hope’s mind just as much as the other girl was running through hers.

_ Actually, gotta get going for the day. Won’t have wifi again until tonight so I’ll catch you later x _

And she really does have to go, the group of volunteers she’s been hanging around with are exploring the city today and had agreed to meet for a brunch of sorts before they took off. If it’s a way to distract herself from the pretty girl texting her, with an even prettier girl’s arm thrown around her shoulder, then that’s just an added benefit.

Still, when she gets back to her room that night and the phone connects to wifi she’s met with a 😔❤️

There’s also a steady stream of messages from Molly, starting with a  _ Why??? Did she send you a tit pic???  _ and an  _ I figured you’d thank me later _ 😏

then finishing up with a play-by-play on the very public breakup that happened in the UCLA library that afternoon.

Amy texts Molly that she’ll call her tomorrow and drifts off to sleep, still thinking of the hot mean girl that’s somewhere around the world. 

—

They start texting semi-regularly after that. 

Amy figures out that Hope has been spending time in Australia, staying with one of her cousins that’s studying abroad there for the summer and had been the other girl in the photo. (When Hope sends a  _ why, were you jealous? _ she doesn’t bother embarrassing herself again in front of the girl)

When the other girl finds out that Amy still has access to Snapchat, Amy starts coming home every day to a barrage of snaps waiting for her. They’re mostly of the various sights that Hope is seeing along the Golden Coast, ranging from strangers on a nude beach to a kangaroo that looks ready to box her. 

Amy’s favorite snaps are the selfies Hope sends over. For the most part, she plays with the filters and the voice modulators, sending Amy quotes from funny movies or making up new lyrics to songs. Every once in awhile there’s just a smile with a geofilter attached.

She screenshots more than she’s willing to admit, and she stops feeling embarrassed when Hope decides to comment on it. (Her heart feels warm and fuzzy when she gets just as many notifications telling her that the other girl has kept her own.)

—

The second postcard comes about three weeks later, though this one is postmarked from a few days after they texted for the first time. This one seems custom made, the front featuring a full photo of Hope cuddling a Koala bear. The girl’s face is one of pure glee, mouth open in a smile, eyebrows shot up in excitement. 

Amy stares at the photo for longer than she cares to admit, and long enough for Bree, one of the other volunteers in her group, to ask her if she was okay. Blushing, she sticks the postcard into the waistband of her shorts, ruminating over the message on the back.

_ Wish you were here _

_ xH _

_ p.s. call me when you get this _

She doesn’t know where Hope is today, just knows that the taller girl had left Australia a few days earlier. She’d tried to get a clear answer as to where her backpacking was going to take her, but either the brunette genuinely didn’t have a plan, or she was keeping it mysterious. For that reason, Amy had no idea what time zone Hope was in now, and whether or not calling her right now would be a reasonable time.

Taking the long way back to her room, Amy sets off across the courtyard of the condo, towards the garden in the back. The nonprofit she was volunteering with encouraged sustainable gardening, and Amy and many of the other volunteers had taken to growing potatoes and tomatoes in the small plots behind their building. There was also a picnic table nestled among the crops, surrounded by all of the flower beds that had been cultivated over the years.

Amy sat, tearing open the other letter in her pile of mail today. She and Molly had taken to writing long drawn out letters while they were separated. The best friends kept in constant conversation - literally, Amy would constantly send messages from her phone with her thoughts in real-time, knowing they wouldn’t actually send until she got back to the condo’s wifi at the end of the day.

Amy had sent the first letter, feeling frustrated about Hope one night while Molly was asleep halfway across the world. Instead of blowing up the sleeping girl’s phone, she wrote out her frustrations along with a bunch of other things that had been weighing on her from being homesick to absolutely loving the people she had met in Botswana. After she’d finished writing, she ended up texting Molly too, telling her friend that she’d decided they were going to become transcontinental pen pals.

In response, hours later, Molly had sent back a “fuck yes. Physical mail is one of my love languages”

They’d been writing back and forth to each other every few days, resulting in a couple of new letters in her mailbox every week. Sometimes they’d even draw each other pictures. Molly, who’d taken to hanging out more with Jared & Gigi, for obvious reasons, would illustrate some of the absurd situations the three would get themselves into around the Hollywood area. There were a few envelopes that even had cartoons from Gigi & Jared themselves, which Amy found oddly heartwarming and endearing. The one night of debauchery they had together had made Amy realize the eccentric pair was surprisingly fun to be around, and she found herself wishing she had realized that sometime before their last day of high school.

Today’s letter was full of Molly’s ramblings about The Bold Type and the newest season of Jessica Jones on Netflix.  _ God Amy missed Netflix.  _ The letter concluded with some hard-to-follow tale of Gigi and a stray cat, and Amy wasn’t sure but she thinks her parents might have adopted said cat and named her Pickles.

Checking the time on her watch and doing the mental math in her head, Amy pulled up her best friend’s contact information and hit the FaceTime button. If her calculations were correct (and their shared google calendar was up to date), then Molly should be at home right now. 

“Hey, best frieeeend.”

She really should not have been that surprised when Gigi’s face took over half of the screen.

Laughing, she adjusted the phone so that her face in the mini picture gave her good lighting. 

“What the fuck dude? Where’s Molly?”

Gigi, moving the camera even closer to her face than Amy thought possible, responded with a shrug.

“Well can you at least explain the whole cat thing to me then?”

The blonde girl finally focused the camera in a normal angle, giving more context as to where she was. Amy could make out the trophies on the shelf of Molly’s room, so she assumed her friend was actually somewhere In the vicinity.

Gigi, who was still talking a mile and minute and who Amy had tuned out somewhere around the beginning, started moving around the room and toward where Amy knew the door was. Journeying down the hallway with the other girl, Amy finally caught a glimpse of Molly in the background, sitting at the kitchen table with Jared and surprisingly, Annabelle.

Hearing a distant, “what the fuck Gigi” coming from Molly’s voice, Amy took her chance to cut the rambling girl off in her story.

“Hey Gigi, as much as I love to hear your voice - and I do, really I do - can you please give Molly her phone back so I can talk to her about something important regarding you know who?”

She was directing that last part to her best friend, who was finally being passed the phone and who had stayed up to date on all of her Hope drama, but it was surprisingly another voice that chipped in next.

Annabelle’s face snuck into the corner of Amy’s screen.

“We all know you and Hope were up each other’s vaginas dude, you don’t need to hide it.”

Amy blushed, knowing that Annabelle and co. didn’t even know the full, traumatizing story.

Molly’s voice finally came piping in. “Yeah, Ames. Everyone here is team #Hamy.”

In the background, she heard Jared’s voice taking credit for that portmanteau. 

Molly continued, “Did something happen? Do I need to hire an assassin to take out a bitch?”

Laughing at the thought of Molly even trying to make that happen, she went on to detail Hope’s latest postcard to her best friend and the other friends that were eavesdropping in on their conversation.

In the end, the consensus in the room was to just call the girl now, her newest location be damned. There was also a “FaceTime her naked” suggestion thrown in from Annabelle and an enthusiastic sound of agreement from Gigi.

She was pleasantly surprised at how it felt to have so many friends offering support on such a personal issue as this one. She loved Molly to death, but having outside opinions was reassuring. After all, Amy knew that sample size was important, and results were more reliable when there was more than one person offering up the same opinion.

Giving her friends in California a genuine thank you, and promising to call Molly again tomorrow when she promised to be alone, Amy gave a heartfelt smile and wave before hanging up the phone.

She knew that she’d told her friends she was going to call Hope as soon as she hung up with them, and she knew that the other girl’s note said to call her when she got the postcard, but  _ technically  _ there was no way for her friends to find out and there was also no way that Hope could track her card to see if it had arrived.

Amy was going to call the girl, she was. Just not right now.

—

To be fair, she thought she would be able to hold out for longer than she did. It was nearing 8PM in Botswana and she had just finished having dinner with the family that was hosting her. They were American ex-pats and had spent over a decade in the civil service, most recently the peace corp. Chuck, the husband, had gone to college with one of the founders of the nonprofit and had moved to Botswana after his time with the peace corp was over. Sarah, his wife who he had met while working in Nepal, had become the director of operations for the company, and they had been providing almost 75% of African women with free tampons for the past 10 years.

Amy had become enthralled with the couple’s stories of all of their travels and adventures together, and she found herself longing for a partner in adventure and travel. In her particularly lonely moments, when she was missing home and missing the girl with the striking brown eyes, she even imagined what it would be like to be traveling the world with her long-legged friend.

Tonight’s tale had detailed a precocious weekend in Melbourne, and Amy’s mind had automatically drifted to thoughts of Hope, though she knew the girl had already moved on from Australia. The rest of the story was lost on her, as she fixated on the last time she’d seen the taller girl’s face, outside her house, days before she left.

It had only been two hours since she’d hung up her conversation with her friends in LA, and even though she’d told herself she was going to hold off until morning, her resolve was cracking with each step she took towards her room. Knowing that Hope was still in the Eastern Hemisphere, rationally Amy knew that wherever she was, it would be later in the night than it was in Botswana right now.

Checking the time on her old-school calculator watch, she noted it was a quarter till eight. Grabbing her phone off the tiny nightstand she had next to her bed, she swiped open Instagram to see if there were any updates from her carefully curated list of followed friends. Since graduating, she’d purged her following list of people she had only followed due to classmate obligation. As usual, within five minutes she found her self seeking out Hope’s profile page, double and triple-checking that she didn’t miss a post or Insta story notification. 

Nothing had been posted today, and the girl’s page looked the same as it had been since her picture with a kangaroo right before she left Australia. Before she could embarrass herself by scrolling the feed and accidentally liking a post from, she swiped out of the app, hoping that it was late enough that she could convince herself it was an appropriate time to go to bed without feeling lame about it.

The clock on her nightstand blinked back at her. 8:57PM, fuck. 

Before she could change her mind again, she swiped over to the call page, and tapped on the girl’s number, waiting for the dial tone to start ringing. Rationally, she knew there was a high chance that the call wouldn’t be answered, but she figured it would be nice for the girl to wake up and see a missed call notification on her home screen.

Laying back in bed, she was so deep in thought trying to weigh the pros and cons of leaving/not leaving a voicemail that she didn’t even notice the phone stop ringing until a sleepy “hello” filtered through her ear.

Amy’s breath caught in her throat. It had been a little over a month since she’d heard the girl’s voice so clearly in her ear. She’d seen her face on the endless stream of snapchats and Instagram stories, not to mention the random selfies that would get texted straight to her throughout the day. (Those were her favorite because, in some way, those photos had been taken especially for Amy rather than who knows who else on social media)

“Amy?” Hope’s voice was exactly like she remembered it, sultry without trying, and clear in a way that indicated she could let her voice be heard in a crowded room, and god did Amy miss it.

“Um, hi. I got your postcard.”

The other girl chuckled through the phone. “Oh, and you actually followed instructions this time, did you? I guess you really must like me.”

The tone is teasing, but Amy can sense a hint of apprehension. Smiling, she teases back, “yeah well I was just dying to know if Koalas are as cuddly as they look.”

Hope hums, “Actually you’d be surprised how heavy and how stinky they are. Mr. Bubbles had horrible breath too.”

Amy giggles, the image of a stank breath koala named Mr. Bubbles somehow manifesting itself in her mind.

“So where are you now, miss world traveler? And what was so urgent that you wanted me to call you?”

She hears rustling through the phone, and for the first time actually wonders if she woke the other girl.

“Wait, shit - did I just wake you up? You can totally tell me to fuck off, I won’t be offended. We can do this another time, I hope I didn’t screw up your body -“ 

A loud laugh interrupts her rambling, followed by Hope saying her name. 

“Dude, chill. Don’t worry about waking me up, seriously. I’m so jet-lagged already that Red Bull is my best friend and I couldn’t even tell you what day it was if I wanted to.”

Amy let out a breath, hoping that Hope couldn’t tell she was relieved to be placated.

The other girl continued, “I’m in Singapore now. Getting my best Crazy Rich Asians life on.” She continues with tales of all of the things she’s done so far in the country, having traveled from Australia to Singapore in the few days that had passed since the last time the two had texted.

Jealous, Amy told the other girl so. “Please try all of the street food for me, I’m living vicariously through you I swear. And try not to fall in love with any Nick Youngs while you’re there. Or Rachel Chus for that matter.”

Hope laughed again, “I think you’d like it here, the culture is amazing. I mean I’d love to come back and I haven’t even left yet.”

Amy knows that Hope isn’t explicitly saying that Amy should go visit Singapore with her, but the phrasing of her sentence sounds oddly similar to an invitation and a promise for the future.

Changing the subject, Amy asks again, “and the reason you wanted me to call?”

For a moment, she thinks Hope has drifted off, but a second later she hears the voice come through the speaker again. “Is it weird that I missed hearing your voice? I mean it's only been 36 days since I’ve seen you, and we only spent like maybe two hours together, max, before you left, but I haven’t been able to think of anyone else since then?”

Never in a million years would Amy have expected that much honesty from the historically closed-off girl. Even though she knew their constant texting had moved past just-friends territory, and even though “butt-gate” had brought them together, intimately, it was a surprise for the other girl to be so forthcoming with emotion like that.

“Was that too much?” 

The vulnerability in her voice is shocking to Amy, and she feels her stomach twist at the thought of the girl, cuddled up in bed with her phone pressed under her ear, a mirror image of herself, yet still half a world away. Unable to keep a grin off her face at the admission, Amy reassures the traveler. 

“If that’s too much then we are very much on the same level of extraness together.”

One of those breathy nose laughs travels through her phone speaker and delights her ears.

“Well, that’s nice to hear. I mean I know we’re doing this kind of out of order because your fingers  _ have been inside  _ of me, but I do really miss seeing you every day.”

Amy lets out a chuckle, mentally berating herself for being so stuck on Ryan for the past four years that she didn’t open her eyes to this other incredible girl. Not wanting to make the mistake again, she tells her so.

“God, we were idiots, huh? We could have been doing this for years but I was so hung up on the fact that you were a  _ little bit _ of an unaffected bitch and was blinded by freaking Ryan and her tattoos and that fucking skateboard.”

Hope laughs, “Hey wait a sec. I’ll give you the fact that I can be a bitch sometimes, but if you’d gotten to know me earlier, you’d probably pick up on the fact that it’s only like a small part of my personality. I’m also a massively sarcastic asshole.”

“And what can you do for me on the tattoos and skateboards?” Amy knows Hope can skateboard, having seen her do it across the quad multiple times with Ryan and the rest of the skaters. If she’s not mistaken, she’s pretty sure that the taller girl even almost barreled her over one time junior year.

“Hmm, how do you know I don’t already have a tattoo?” she flirts back.

At that Amy’s mind freezes. The image of Hope she has seared into her brain from that night in the bathroom, before the puking but after her insane burst of courage to kiss the taller girl, is flashing behind her eyes. She tries to build the girl’s body, laying on the bathmat, covered in just a bra, and scan the skin she remembers seeing to try and find a tattoo that she would have noticed.

“Um, wha- wait, what? Did you get one at some shady shack in Sydney?” 

Hope laughs, and the sound is both insanely frustrating and makes her stomach flip. “Nope, I can assure you that this ink is LA born and raised. Got it on my 18th birthday, so it’s been there for almost a year.”

Now Amy liked to think of herself as perceptive. Being a nerd in high school had meant studying her ass off, but it also meant taking a shit ton of notes in class, a byproduct of diligent concentration, and the ability to pay close attention to detail. She and Hope had shared a number of classes together this past year, and she swears she would have noticed if the girl had a permanent marking on her skin, granted that it was in a spot visible with clothing on. She also takes pride in her memorization skills (another byproduct of nerd-dom) and even though she knows the moment in the bathroom was short-lived and emotions were high, she likes to think she would have fixated on any tattoos Hope had hidden.

Shaking her head even though she knows the other girl can’t see her face, Amy pushes back. “There’s no way. I’m calling BS.”

Hope laughs again and Amy warms at the sound. “Well, I guess you’ll just have to live with not knowing for sure or not. Maybe you’ll just have to look closer next time.”

A whiny noise she didn’t know she could make fought its way out of her throat and she blushed even though she knew that nobody could see her. “Ugh, fine. But I will hold you to that.”

Rolling over, she noticed the time on the wall clock was nearing 10PM her time. “I’m sorry for keeping you up so late. You probably should get some sleep if you’re going to go get any more imaginary tattoos while you’re in Singapore this week.”

A rustling comes through the phone and she imagines Hope rolling over in bed to get more comfortably nestled in her blankets. A yawn comes, followed by her voice, which had been getting more and more lethargic as time had passed. “Mmm, but I like hearing your voice.”

Shifting in bed herself, Amy smiles at the wall. “Well you can call me anytime. I can’t always answer but I promise I’ll call you back or send you one of those sappy voice texts.”

“You think you’re kidding but I’m holding you to that, nerd.”

“You can’t see it but I’m pinkie promising from here,” and she’s not lying when she says that, holding a pinkie out towards the wall of her Botswanian room.

Another yawn comes through the phone, followed by Hope’s sleepy voice. “I’m spending a few more days here in Asia with Sam and then I’m heading off solo to Greece for a few days. I’m thinking Paris after that, then Spain and then Morocco.”

Amy’s stomach flutters at that, the feeling that the other girl is getting closer and closer in geography making her skin tingle. “Trying to hit all of the continents before you head home?” 

“Something like that, yeah. I think I’ll head south from Morocco and then hop from Africa to Argentina like two weeks before I need to be back home. I want to try and make it to Rio and Costa Rica before the summer’s over.”

The unsaid stop is laid out clearly for her as if Hope is asking her to step in. Amy knows she invited the other girl to come and visit her back on the last day that they saw each other, and knows that she should extend the offer again right now, while they’re still on the conversation about it. For some reason, the words get stuck in her throat, the fear of rejection still clawing its way through her chest.

“Sounds like you’re going to be on a busy schedule, I’m looking forward to getting more snaps and postcards,” she trails off. “I kinda wish you had like a stable address so I could send you one back for a change.”

If Hope’s disappointed at the lack of a visit brought up, she doesn’t let it show in her voice. “Yeah, well, you’re off doing good for the world as usual. I’m just a vain teenager that’s using my grandparents’ graduation money to get see the world before I’m stuck.” Another yawn bookends her words, and Amy knows that she needs to let the other girl go.

“That sounds like a cue for me to let you go back to sleep,” she chuckles. “Hey, I’ll talk to you soon, okay? And I promise I’ll start leaving more voice messages if you really want me to.”

The hum of affirmation that filters through the phone makes Amy smile, her mind creating what she imagines is Hope’s sleepy face, smushed against her pillow.

“Will you stay on the line until I fall asleep?” The words are mumbled out, Hope’s voice in that sweet middle ground between consciousness. 

Knowing that she won’t have to wait long, Amy agrees. The next ten minutes are filled with mumbles from the girl in Asia, detailing her plans for the next day. The last thing that Hope says before she falls asleep is “I wish you were here” and if Amy responses with an “I miss you” even though she knows the words fall on deaf ears, well, it’s not a crime in Botswana.

//

Amy wakes up the morning after their phone call with a slew of voice messages from her quasi-girlfriend. Hope is not her girlfriend, she knows that, but trying to explain the extent of their relationship to the friends that she’s made in Botswana is difficult and it’s easier to say girlfriend than girl-i-didn’t-realize-i-had-a-crush-on-but-already-have-stuck-a-finger-inside-and-accidentally-puked-on for obvious reasons.

In return, she records her own little messages to the girl, sending them whenever she gets a chance and talking about the most random little tidbits about her day.

This continues on and off for the next two weeks, while Hope makes her way across Asia to Greece, then Paris and Spain. In that time, Amy ends up with a postcard from Singapore and a card from the Parthenon, featuring a photo of Hope (looking as hot as ever as a Grecian hipster) next to the statue of Athena. If there’s anything that Amy knows about Greek mythology, it’s that they believed goddesses walked the Earth. Staring at that photo of Hope she’s inclined to believe they were on to something.

Their calls start becoming more and more frequent. Time zones start to become less of a problem the farther west Hope travels, and by the time Hope has made her way into France, the girls are finally on the same clock. Amy gives it a couple of days, letting the other girl’s body adjust to the new time zone, before she gets into the habit of late-night phone calls, around 10PM, so that they can fall asleep on the phone together.

It’s nearing the last week in July, a little over a month left in the Summer when Amy gets a postcard from France in the mail. This one is another that’s clearly been taken by Hope herself, and shows the girl laying across one of those bougie velvet chaise lounges, at what appears to be a rooftop bar, with the Eiffel Tower looming in the background. Hope has written across the photo on this one too, an arrow pointing to the couch and the words “A very expensive couch.” The back of this one has a single question on it:

_ Is yours still free? _

_ xH _

She’d talked to Hope for over an hour on the phone the night before, the girl taking a train from Barcelona to Madrid and having nothing but free time. Hope never mentions the postcards in advance, and Amy has come to enjoy getting the little surprises in her mailbox on a semi-consistent basis. They hadn’t even discussed Hope’s travel plans since the night of their first phone call, other than a casual “where are you now/where are you going now?” and the girl hasn’t made a mention of Morocco or Egypt or any African countries at all.

The idea of planning a visit sends Amy into a panic every time the thought crosses her mind. She would love to see Hope, their regular communications have brought the two closer together than she had ever imagined they would be based on their limited interactions in all of the years they’d gone to school together. But she’s also nervous that the foundation they’ve built over the phone in the past 2 months would dissipate after they see each other in person again.

She immediately texts Molly, hoping that the other girl hasn’t gone to sleep yet.

_ SOS _

In true Molly fashion, the California Girl calls her instead of typing out a message.

“Please don’t tell me you’re being chased by a Lion because I’m going to be honest Amy, I don’t really know what I could do to help you in that situation.” Before Amy can get a word in, she continues. “If you’re being kidnapped, say Trump is a genius because I know you’d never say that in real life.”

“Mol, I’m physically fine,” she laughs. “Emotionally, well...” She trails off, hoping that her best friend knows her well enough to sense where her panic is stemming from.

“Well, that’s a fucking relief. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to start calling Gigi my new best friend.”

At that moment, the ding of a new message pops up on her phone. Putting Molly on speaker so that she can check to see who it is, Amy lets out a “what the fuck?” when she reads the simple  _ hey _ from Gigi on her screen.

“Dude I swear to god she is watching us.”

“Did you get that too?”

She hears shuffling on the other end, the distinct sound of keyboard keys clicking under her best friend’s fingers, presumably responding to the errant message.

“Okay, never mind. That’s beside the point - we have an actual emergency on our hands Moll.”

The sound of the keyboard doesn’t let up, though Molly’s voice filters through the phone. “Amy, if this is another one of your mid-morning existential crises about the injustices of the world, I hear you. But there is very little I can do about it wh-“

“No, no, no, this is not about that this time,” she cuts the other girl off mid-sentence. “This is a very first-world problem emergency that involves me and you-know-who.”

A shriek sounds from the other girl. “AMY push-lease tell me that Hope is trying to sext and you have no clue how to respond. Oh, or she made a reference to some classic novel that you didn’t understand and need my help deciphering.” 

Amy rolls her eyes, knowing her best friend will go down a rabbit hole of inane possibilities, ranging from the ridiculous to the completely insane. 

“First of all, I do not need your help with sexting. You remember what happened that one time we got on Omegle freshman year,” she says, flopping onto her bed. “This is a much larger problem. I got another postcard from Hope -“

“I still cannot believe you have the bad girl of school waxing poetic in snail mail Amy, I feel like we have truly not sat and relished in the gravity of this situation. The literal most romantic thing in the world between you and the girl you were mildly afraid of slash constantly turned-on by for the last four years. It’s just, I. It’s a miracl-“

“Molly, she wants to come visit me.”

Once it’s out in the open, the weight of the words settles around Amy, blanketing her in both excitement and anxiety. Sure, they’d been in constant communication for the better part of Amy’s time in Africa, but there was always the safety blanket of their geographic distance that kept her from freaking out too much about how often she thought about the taller girl. Her brain had spent the better part of their friendship (relationship?) torn between wanting to catalog every moment of her day in order to replay them back to Hope inI’m their sometimes nightly phone calls, and wanting to ghost the other girl with the easy excuse of being on a completely different continent. Never did she think that her off-hand invitation on her sidewalk after graduation would actually be accepted. 

“You are clearly not paying attention to me anymore,” filters through her speaker, jarring her from her thoughts of the sidewalk. “Amy you are a lit-er-al  _ fucking _ goddess. Do not go off into your little spiral thing you do when you’re freaking out about something that we both know you are unnecessarily anxious about.”

She chuckles, wiping the fatigue and anxiety from her eyes. “Have I told you lately that I miss you Mol? You absolute queen of a human being.”

“Um, you haven’t told me in a few days but you needn’t worry, I can feel the vibes all the way across the globe. Um, hold on a sec Ames.”

A beat passes and the distinct jingle of a FaceTime request rings next to her ear. Rolling her eyes, Amy brushes her hair back before twisting her face into a squished grimace and tapping on the Accept button. Molly’s face slides onto the screen, backlit by the RBG lamp Amy knows is on her bedside table.

“Ames, I know you’re intentionally making that face, but you are literal perfection. I have missed gazing upon your beauty on the daily.”

Amy relaxes her features, narrowing her eyes at her best friend, and giving her a pointed look. “I know it’s late over there, but I appreciate you answering your phone for your little ole friend across the planet. I swear I’m okay, but I do appreciate you listening.” 

“Amy, you know I would do literally anything for you, but you also know that I need my beauty sleep and how important a good REM cycle is for memory consolidation. Listen to me, because I’m only going to say this once. You have been obsessed with Hope for forever. Ryan was just a distraction because she outwardly presented her gender identity in a non-conforming manner, and your little gay brain assumed she was the only other sapphicly inclined female in our grade. Hope is what I would call your dream girl. I will deny it if ever asked, but she is a beautiful Amazonian bad bitch, who is actually very smart and you guys would make beautiful, inclusive, feminist babies if you were so inclined.

“I don’t know Hope very well, but from what I can tell, she really fucking likes you. And she barely likes Annabelle and she’s her best friend. Annabelle hears from Hope like every couple of days, so the fact that she talks to you like every day means you have her wrapped around her finger.”

Amy flips over onto her stomach, propping up her phone and Molly’s face on the pillows against her wall. She folds her hands underneath her chin, grinning as her best friend goes on.

“Amy, you like her! You won’t shut up about her, you have the same taste in those weird movies that always star Timothée what’s-his-name, and you like the same pretentious music. Hang up with me, and call her, or Snapchat, or whatever you crazy kids have been doing, and invite her to your little condo.” Molly yawns, face scanning the surroundings, and narrows in on the pile of clothes next to Amy on the bed. “But clean your room first, you heathen. Two months on another continent and you’ve turned into a slob?”

Amy rolls her eyes, shoving her clean laundry over and out of view. “Mol, I would just like to reiterate, for the record, that I love you, and I cherish our friendship, and I appreciate that you answered the phone even though you have a strict sleep pattern routine. Thank you for talking me down from the ledge. I will let you go to sleep, and will send you a full report on my imminent conversation with you-know-who.”

The lights in Molly’s room dim, and the other girl’s figure fades across the screen as she settles into bed. Her face reappears, closer to the camera, the glow of the screen illuminating her eyes with an unnatural glow.

Amy sits back up, the time difference apparent as she gets ready to start her day as her friend prepares to end hers.

“Amy if you can’t even say her name, how are you going to scream it in the middle of intercours-“

“OH-KAY, Moll, I love you, goodnight, I will talk to you soon.” Amy ends the call, minimizing her best friend’s face as it’s mid-cackle.

She plugs her phone back into its charger, having drained it of battery with her transcontinental video chat. She’ll call Hope after she comes back from lunch.

—

She did not call Hope after lunch. There had been an emergency meeting with the rest of the volunteers. She doesn’t get back to her room until after dinner and hops in the shower to wash away the grime of her day.

Curling up in bed, she grabs her phone where she’d plugged it in to charge when she got back. Now connected to wifi, all of the notifications she’s missed from her friends throughout the day along with many Snapchats from Hope.

Before she can lose her nerve, she swipes to her phonebook and dials Hope’s number. The dial tone rings once, then twice, before the other girl’s voice trickles through the speaker.

“I was going to give you until the morning to process before just bucking up and calling you instead.”

Amy laughs, covering her eyes, feeling bashful, even though she knows Hope can’t see the blush spreading across her cheeks.

“You think you know me so well, do ya?”

“Hmm, well I know you tend to spiral about these things,” Hope says. “I also happened to chat with Annabelle yesterday while she was with Molly and your wife may have given me a bit of advice on how you tend to deal with shocking information.”

Amy rolls her eyes, but her heart warms at the thought of two of her favorite people discussing her little ole self. “That traitor. She played dumb when I called her earlier.”

Hope chuckles, “Well to her credit I didn’t tell her what news bomb I was dropping on you, we spoke more in hypotheticals. Also, fucking Annabelle was clearly pissed that I had interrupted whatever Yale business those two were up to and our conversation was actually pretty short.”

“You defending Molly? Why, I never thought I’d see the day.”

Hope hums in agreement, giving Amy a chance to soak in the happiness that blooms in her chest when she’s chatting with the traveler. 

“Amy?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you have anything in specific you wanted to chat about, or do you want to finally admit that you like the sound of my voice?”

Feeling brave, the shorter girl starts, “Well if we’re being totally honest, both.”

Hope chuckles at that, and she’s sure that if she was with the traveling girl there would be a faint blush coloring her impeccable cheekbones.

“Iwantyoutocomevisitme. If you want to of course. I know we haven’t actually spent that much time together but I feel like we’ve really gotten to know each other over the phone these past couple of weeks and I think coming down to Botswana was already kind of in the path of your travel plans anyways and I think it would be really nice to see me. I mean you! I mean, you know what I mean.”

“Amy! Breathe, nerd.”

Amy cringes, though she knows the word isn’t laced with any of the malice that it had been when they had been in class together.

“I would really like you to see me too. And I would like to see you too for the record. And try out this couch that I’ve heard so much about.”

Tension she doesn’t know she had been holding bleeds out of her shoulders, and she turns to squeal into her pillow.

Hope continues, “Um, actually what would you say if I told you I was already kind of in your neck of the woods. I mean not totally, I just made it to Marrakech this morning and I’m heading to Cairo tomorrow evening. And didn’t want to presume or anything but I already bought a ticket from there to Gabarone just in case.”

Amy smiles, touched that the other girl wanted to see her as much as she did. Her stomach flutters at the thought of seeing Hope so soon.

“No!” She giggles, “I’m glad you did!” Softer she adds, “I can’t wait to see you.”

They continue talking about their day, and Amy makes Hope promise to send her her flight information so she can make sure to make plans to pick her up when she arrives. 

It’s not until morning that she realizes she’d fallen asleep mid-conversation, the only evidence a dead phone, and a text message waiting for her once it’s recharged -  _ Sleep well, see you so soon!!!! _

_ — _

Volunteers in Amy’s work program are allowed two days off for every month that they decide to serve. They also are free to switch their days off per week with other volunteers. With a little creative scheduling and a bit of bribing some of her co-workers, Amy manages to clear her schedule for the days that Hope plans to be in Botswana. She figures she can show her visitor the city or cross the border into South Africa and go sightseeing together when her friend arrives.

She hasn’t told Hope her plans; the other girl is under the assumption that Amy will be working most of the time she’s in town.

Amy can barely sleep the night before Hope arrives, too excited to close her eyes, even though she knows sleep will only make the arrival come faster. Then, the minute her eyes open the next morning, she’s up and at ‘em, with an exuberance rivaling a child on Christmas Day.

She arrives at the small airport an hour before Hope’s plane is set to arrive, just to cover all of her bases in the event that headwinds somehow manage to push the girl’s plane faster through the sky.

Thankful for the airport’s wifi, she parks herself near the baggage claim, with a clear view of the doors from the gates, then flips onto her podcast app to continue listening to one of her guilty-pleasure pop culture recap pods. She’s definitely paying attention to the stream of people trickling through the doors, and not zoned in on the latest gossip on The Bachelorette, so she’s surprised when a photo slides itself into her view.

The picture is actually one of those tacky collages, a bunch of landmark photos from Gabarone, with a cheesy font spelling out “Greetings from Botswana.”

The hand attached to the photo is both familiar and not, with recognizable rings wrapped around fingers, a worn-down cloth bracelet circling the wrist, and what looks like a dainty new tattoo on the inside of the middle finger.

Amy reaches out to grab the postcard with one hand, quickly grasping Hope’s newly emptied fingers with her other. Finally having the other girl in front of her, after so long apart leaves Amy breathless and overwhelmed. It’s in this moment she realizes how much she’s come to lean on the comforts of Hope in the past few weeks. Hope reminds her of home, and at once she’s hit with both a rush of homesickness and affection for this physical reminder of California.

She’s self-aware enough to know that her feelings aren’t misguided or projected, but the sudden onslaught catches her off guard, leaving her staring at the other girl for a second too long, still gripping her hand.

Hope gives her a lopsided smirk, much like the ones she used to give Amy across the aisle in homeroom. Her eyes flick down, reminding Amy of the cardstock in her other hand. It’s then that Amy realizes the traveler must have made a pit-stop at one of the airport kiosks to purchase this as soon as she landed.

She flips the card over in her hand, uncovering the scrawl she’s come so used to seeing in the past weeks.

_ I missed you _

_ xoxox _

The laughter that bubbles out of Amy’s throat is involuntary, and the grin that stretches across her face is immediately mirrored on Hope’s right in front of her. The sound shocks her body back into action and Amy hops up from her seat, arms wrapping around Hope’s neck in the next breath. 

The postcard is forgotten in the bustle, crumpled in Amy’s hand as they embrace, and getting shoved in her pocket when she brings her hands up to cradle Hope’s face as their lips meet again for the first time since that night on the bathroom floor.

It’s not until a ding chimes simultaneously from each of their phones that they part. Amy’s eyes open first, giving her a chance to watch Hope’s pupils dilate and focus on her as they open. She keeps her arms wrapped around the taller girl’s neck, holding her close. Another chime goes ignored.

“I shouldn’t have told Annabelle when my plane was landing, how much do you want to bet there’s a lewd gif waiting for us.”

Amy laughs again, Hope’s voice in-person a delight to her ears. 

“Let them wait, talking on the phone is so overrated when I have you here to talk to in the flesh.”

Hope laughs, pulling Amy along to the doors and off into the city for them to explore, “I’m telling Molly you said that.”

\--

5 weeks later

Amy strolls across the courtyard toward the outdoor dining area, chatting with Sarah and Bree about the upcoming project they have with their sister organization in Zimbabwe. They’re planning on making a trip to the other country as part of an exchange program, providing some of the local women employed by their non-profit the opportunity to travel outside of their home city for what might be the first time.

The initiative was a brainchild that came to Amy after venturing into Johannesburg for the first time with Hope while she had been visiting. Upon her return back to basecamp, she’d presented her co-workers with some souvenirs from the neighboring country and had realized that many of the women had never had the opportunity to venture past the city limits of Gabarone, much less another country so close to where they lived.

Talking it through with her traveling partner when they’d both returned to Botswana for one last night before Hope was set to continue her world tour, she was struck with the revelation that so many of the people Hope herself had connected with along her journey had never set foot outside of their comfortable home bubble.

It had been simple enough for Amy to convince Sarah to find a partner organization to work with on this venture, and in turn, the director had allowed Amy to help spearhead the program. It had provided the volunteer with a passion project, not unlike many of the ones she had led back home during high school. It was also nice to have something to direct all of her energy towards, instead of the post-visit depression that hit as soon as her newly-minted girlfriend stepped into the airport for her departure.

As the women passed through the admin building, Chuck exited, a stack of envelopes in hand.

“Amy! Just the gal I was hoping to see,” he said, shuffling through the parcels. “Looks like you got a little love from home today.”

He handed her four pieces of mail; the first a thicker envelope covered in nonsensical doodles that can only have originated from a pen held by Gigi. The second is a letter, impeccably addressed to her and enveloped in personal stationery,  _ From the desk of Molly H. Davidson.  _

It’s the third that captures her attention the most though, a postcard flipped writing side face-up. The penmanship is familiar, both comforting and exhilarating in a way that only a message from Hope can be.

_ Figured I’d finally give you my permanent address now that we’re official ;) _

_ Xoxo -H _

Since her departure and subsequent adventure back home by way of South America, Amy had continued to receive postcards from the taller girl, in an unbroken cadence. A postcard had even arrived from her girlfriend from Gabarone itself, postmarked from the middle of her actual visit.

Amy had amassed a collection of cards from Argentina and Mexico and many places in between. Some were clearly picked off the shelves at tiny bodegas, while some were written notes on the back of photos that Hope had printed out of the two of them, taken during their days together.

Hope had made her way back to the States a week prior, the countdown to the first day of school looming like an iron fist. Amy had been in contact sparingly, but her new partnership project along with hope squeezing in a late college orientation had kept both girls up at all hours of the night and more often than not, at completely different times. 

College hadn’t come up in conversation at all while Hope was visiting her, an active choice on Amy’s part to not ruin the mood or remind the other girl that Amy would miss out on an entire school year. In fact, they’d never had a discussion about so-called higher education with Hope and had only heard through the Annabelle-Molly grapevine sparing details about Hope’s plans for school.

It had been her understanding that Hope was staying in-state, calling Stanford home, but as she flips the new postcard over she realizes that was just conjecture. The picture she stares down at is not an unfamiliar sight, it’s a scene she’s come to know all too well both from her own travels and from her annual tradition of watching the ball drop in Times Square (with Molly, of course, both girls avid fans of watching awkward crowd interviews.) 

Flipping the card back over, Amy takes care to check the post stamp this time. It’s hard to make out the ink over the stamp, but she can clearly make out New York, NY, and the first three numbers of a zip code.

Not bothering to try and detective the address, she pulls her phone out and taps to her conversation with her girlfriend. Not bothering to try and text the other girl, she hits the FaceTime icon. In her rush, she doesn’t take heed of the time and so the sleepy face that appears on her screen is a shock at first.

“Ames you have got to start responding to my letters in a more timely manner.”

In the glow from Hope’s bedside lamp, she can see an NYU pennant hanging on the wall above her head. The adorable sleepy voice that she’d gotten used to during Hope’s visit (the couch had gotten surprisingly little attention while the other girl was in town) warms Amy’s heart and for a moment she forgets why she’d called.

“Amy?”

Snapping back to attention, Amy giggles and responds, “Well when you stop sending me shocking information with no warning I’ll stop calling you off schedule.” 

“Can’t a girl try and add a little mystery to her relationship?”

“Well doesn’t a girl have the right to be a little excited when she’s told when her girlfriend is going to live in the same city as her, especially when she thought they’d still be living thousands of miles away even when they’re finally back in the same country?”

The newly-dubbed New Yorker wipes her eyes, rolling over to settle back into bed.

“Hmm, well I figured we had a nice thing going with our snail mail thing and I wanted it to be a surprise while I got settled in. You’ll rock your gap year, and make incredible things happen across the African continent and touch so many people’s lives and do so much good, and I’ll scope out the hot spots in this crazy city like the best feminist book store sections and the best coffee shops specializing in fair-trade coffee beans and that way when you get back stateside in the spring you’ll feel right at home.”

She hasn’t felt homesick much in the past few months that she’s been across the world, and part of that is due to the constant communication she’s had with the girl on the other side of her phone, who’d also been far from home the entire time. It’s only now, as she realizes everyone is laying new roots and starting new adventures and making new memories half a world away.

“Ames?”

The two other envelopes rustle in her hand, reminding her that there are other people out that who care enough about her, even across oceans, to send her a little love. The girl on the other side of the screen yawns, reminding her of the time difference and that she has a person willing to humor her at all hours of the day. Somebody who loves her enough to send thoughtful postcards, taking moments out of what was arguably the trip of a lifetime to think about her.

“Perfect. I’m perfect. It’s perfect, you’re perfect.”

Hope grins then, nuzzling back into her pillow, eyes already drooping shut.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Molly that I’m your new favorite.”

Laughing, Amy bids her girlfriend “Goodnight”, promising to call her at a more suitable time. She finally opens the fourth envelope that Chuck had handed over to her, its origin a few miles down the road. A stack of her own photos from Hope’s visit slides out, all with a blank back ready to be written on. She’d been prepared to ask for the brunette’s dorm address after she’d let her settle into her new school routine but is pleased that as always, Hope had been one step ahead and more forthcoming with information. 

She shuffles through the photos seeking out a specific memory. The photo in question is of the two of them, both with hiking gear on, sweaty and smiling after a long hike they’d traversed. Hope’s arm is thrown around Amy’s shoulders, her lips pressed against the shorter’s temple. The photo had captured Amy mid-grin, eyes scrunched up, and blush blooming. She had the digital version saved as her new phone screensaver.

She’ll send Hope a postcard for once, she decides. It just might be tucked within a larger, far longer letter to the other girl. Physical mail just might be one of her love languages as well.

  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr xx


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